I won a scholarship worth $1,000 from an organization. I’m a first generation college student so I don’t really know what I’m doing. Okay so do I first report the scholarship to my school’s financial aid office or do give the organization the info they request? The letter from the organization says I must mail them a copy of my registration/enrollment to my college and that it must contain my student account number. Will sending a copy of my class schedule work and is my student account number the same as my student ID #? (ps I already signed up for my classes that I will be taking this Fall 2015)
My DD’s outside scholarship required a bill from the school. It was actually pretty hard to get because the scholarship needed it by 7/31 and we hadn’t been billed yet. I sent a screen shot of the preliminary bill and it worked.
If the check from the outside scholarship gets sent to you, you need to report it to the school’s FA office. A simple note is all it takes. If the check is sent to the school (they need your acct #?) you don’t have to do anything else as they’ll know about it.
At my daughters school outside scholarships can be reported in the financial aid section of the school’s online portal. I’ll disagree and say you should report it even if the check will be going directly to the school. Depending on when payment is due, that could be another 1 1/2 months or more, so let the school know now. It sounds like that will be the case since the organization needs your school account number. I know at my daughter’s school her billing account number is different than her student ID. Poke around the online portal and see if there’s a preliminary version of the bill that has a billing account number.
Congratulations! And Kudos for asking how to report it instead of how to get away with not reporting it.
Report it to the financial aid office (call and ask them how to do so if it is not clear on the college’s website) AND request that you be allowed to use it for one-time expenses like a computer.
Congratulations!
First, you need to report it to the financial aid office as other mentioned. Second, you will need to contact the registrar office for an enrollment certificate and submit it as a proof to the scholarship agency. Nevertheless, the enrollment certificate may be not available until school started. For that, you may need to ask the scholarship agency what kind of record they may need or if they can defer the requirement. In my D’s case, the scholarship asked for enrollment certificate but they accept the class registration record from registrar office as a temporary proof for releasing the fund. My D submitted the enrollment certificate later on. The registration record will have your student ID (which may be different from your student account number) that the financial office will figure out where the money go when they receive it.
@arabrab Thanks and yeah I actually want to use that money exactly for that. I have an old laptop that has not been working properly lately and a new laptop would be a really great. So you think if I ask they will consider it? I come from a low income family so my financial aid package is, from what I understand, enough to pay for my whole school tuition this 2015- 2016. So I applied to this scholarship earlier in the year because my father doesn’t make a lot of money and I was really worried about how much college would cost. I really didn’t think I would win but I did so now I’m confused because I was going to use the money to pay for tuition…but it seems it has all been already paid for? And yes I was thinking that maybe I can use it to buy a new laptop. It’s something that would definitely be helpful to have for college.
Update! So I sent the organization my Student ID number, a copy of my class schedule, and a thank you letter. After they received my information, they mailed the check directly to my school. When I found out the organization had sent the check, I tried to contact the Financial Aid office to report the scholarship but they kept me on hold each time and then the message recorded would just play again telling me to stay on hold if I wanted to talk to someone but no one ever picked up. But then a few days later, I received an email informing me that there had been changes to my account. The Cal State I attend is in the quarter system so Financial Aid Office ended up splitting the award into 3 parts. So I will be receiving about $333 for the Fall, Winter, and Spring. Thanks to everyone who replied to my question!
Thanks for the update.